Chub

project: SCI-Arc Board Room & Conference Table Competition

location: SCI-Arc. Los Angeles, CA

date: 2006

scale: Interior/Furniture

status: Winner/Built

design: Ramiro Diaz-Granados,  Heather Flood

CHUB, or ‘central hub’, is an 18’ diameter table that was designed for the Southern California Institute of Architecture. Initially a call for a new Board of Directors Table that would seat up to 25 people and promote an egalitarian environment, our proposal extends that model to serve the multiple sized bodies within the school including the Board of Directors, the Administration, the Students, and the Faculty. With this in mind the project was framed within the following conceptual bookends: 1. to behave within a well-defined range of individual to collective performance criteria and 2. to employ contemporary fabrication methods in order to increase organizational intelligence, programmatic capabilities, and sensual delights.

CHUB is made of eleven individual tables, or chubbies, that are mounted on casters so that they can be relocated throughout the school for use by individuals and small groups. The eleven chubbies ‘dock’ around a wired core that is permanently located in the library. Lime green ‘power strips’ radiate out from the central core to provide power, usb, and internet to all of the chubbies.  When all eleven chubbies are ‘docked’, they form a continuos table top for large group meetings and teaching or lecturing purposes.  Each chubby is made of 36 layers of plywood contours that have been CNC milled then dowel fitted together.  Water-jet cut glass pieces form the working surface of the tops.

CHUB is also a descriptive term for the project’s morphological and affective properties. It’s lazy, relaxed, pudgy, and cute.